Caterham F1 Barcelone Day 4

Heikki Kovalainen: “This is the sort of test you look back on and think we’re pleased to have got behind us, but we have still learnt a lot here and have ironed out quite a few issues that could have been more serious later in the season. Things haven’t exactly gone as we would have liked, but I think we all know where the car can and should be when it gets real in Australia, so now the challenge is to regroup in time for next week and make sure we come back here ready to put in a final week of hard work on track and get back to where we want to be.”

Mike Gascoyne, Caterham Group Chief Technical Officer: “Heikki’s first laps this morning went according to plan and he was reporting that the car felt more like it had in Jerez. Unfortunately we then had a small electrical issue in the engine so we decided to make a precautionary engine change which obviously cut short our track time in the morning.

“In the afternoon we got back to where we wanted to be, with long-run fuel loads throughout the afternoon, and I think we caught up quite a lot of the time we had lost this morning. We definitely have work to do in preparation for next week, but we know the areas we need to focus on, and we will have the race one aero package here for T03, so we have plenty of reasons to look forward to the last test of the season.”

Riad Asmat, Caterham Group Chief Executive Officer: “In contrast to last week in Jerez, T02 has been a pretty tough week for us, but this is why we come testing. Everyone in the team has worked hard all week to make up the time we have lost to what are relatively small issues each day, but they are all issues that take time to fix while the sessions are on and need to be attended to immediately.

“We go straight from here to a day of aero testing in Spain next week, before returning for the final test in Barcelona and we will all be working flat out here and back at the factory to make sure we can maximise our time on track at T03.”